This is what smartphones in future will be like

The most indispensable part of our daily life, the smartphone, will be more integrated into our lives as we get engulfed in a smartphone surround era. From shopping to dinner, socializing to holidays, smartphones help us in all tasks. And that list has continued to increase every year. 2017 and coming years will be yet more upgrades and leaps in smartphones. Batteries will run longer, processors will work faster, cameras will capture more and screens will be smarter & stronger. That will be in part due to the natural evolution of hardware technology. But watch out for what all the software enables and that’s where the future gets closer to science fiction, than it has ever been in the past.

Smartphone is always with you--and will be irrespective of what shape it comes in -- foldable, modular, slightly bent! But remember when you misplaced it even for a few minutes and felt helpless. Relax, even the smartphone could be missing you and send an e-mail which you can check on another device—smart watch, tablet or laptop—to get the message that `you left me in the bathroom’. This could happen with pre-set time, say `send-mail if missing for 10 minutes’ —before an e-mail is sent.

Shopping will increase on mobiles. Thanks to Augmented reality (AR) features, the experience will also be better even as more people opt for m-commerce. Shoppers will experience more customization and could also be shown interactive ads, only of products they are interested in.

Apart from shopping, sensors embedded on the phone (and the apps you download) will do a lot more than telling how many steps you took in a day. Among possible sensors are air quality sensors, a must have for people in India who are scrambling to buy air purifiers. As you browse through city maps the quality of air could also be shown along with traffic situation in a particular area. You will also know about allergens and this will come to your smartphone via sensors around the city, sharing air quality data with central servers which in turn will relay this to your phone.

Ofcourse, for air quality monitoring to happen on your palm device the city infrastructure has to be equipped to share relevant information. As cities morph into `smart cities’ your smartphone will be an important part of this and will help in getting latest on weather, air quality, traffic and such vital services.

As you monitor air quality on smartphones, its promise as a medical assistant will not only get better but you will get more information as well. From tracking pulse to providing an ECG the future phone could also do blood and sugar tests, besides backing up as a breath analyzer—to ensure you are within safe alcohol limits to drive after a party. Of course technology is always a few steps ahead of regulation and it might take a while before doctors endorse smartphone as a health diagnostic tool.

So instead of isolated devices doing all checks, smartphones could work with other devices to get better results. For some functions smartphones will sync up with other devices, like wrist monitors and cuff with inflatable bladder (for BP measurement) to give a regular health update. In case of BP, the lead from the external apparatus will go to the smartphone to display BP and pulse rate. That is wearable tech integrating with smartphone.

Even as the smartphone doubles as a virtual health assistant, more interfaces will evolve — voice will get better and use of gestures and non-tap inputs will increase. These could include a hand wave to browse pages or bring out the playlist to play your favourite music. The switch from manual to voice to text to gesture could be seamless, depending on the task at hand. You could also dictate and send e-mails with voice commands. Here Artificial Intelligence (AI) meets smartphones to create new ways of interacting with the smartphone and do lot more than you can today. In fact, if you go by AI geeks, voice will replace every other input as smartphones begin to obey commands all the times.

For example you could simply tell your smartphone app to `pay my electricity bill’ and the app will pull out the bill, take money from the mobile wallet and complete the transactions (based on pre-set instructions) and also inform if the digital wallet has run out of money.

Banking and payments will be far simplified in tomorrow’s smartphones — some of the mundane activities will be done by AI tools — when the digital wallet runs out of money it loads up again to the pre-assigned limit to make it easier to do your next transaction — like pay for popcorn or a movie. And as facial recognition improves, you could be able to take a picture (with multiple camera options) of a crowd and spot where your friend is!

The possibilities of what smartphones can do as isolated devices or in sync with others are actually limitless. This capability comes from improvements in the ecosystem—hardware to artificial intelligence algorithm—making the smartphone your most powerful device that you carry.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETTelecom.com does not necessarily subscribe to it. ETTelecom.com shall not be responsible for any damage caused to any person/organisation directly or indirectly.

Faisal Siddiqui is the President, HTC South Asia and has been with the company since May 2011. He is in charge of the HTCs business in South Asia region, which includes India, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Australia/New Zealand, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Faisal Siddiqui is the President, HTC South Asia and has been with the company since May 2011. He is in charge of the HTCs business in South Asia region, which includes India, Show more.. Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Australia/New Zealand, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.